By becoming a mentor, you can give meaning to your professional career, strengthen your soft skills and feel useful on a daily basis. Mentoring also helps people who are far from employment or in vulnerable situations to move towards success. In short, it offers numerous advantages for all stakeholders: mentors, mentees and companies!
Using concrete examples, this article explains what mentoring is, what it consists of and how it can be implemented in companies as part of a concretecommitment to society.
What is mentoring?
Mentoring is a learning and support program designed to help people at different stages of their professional and personal development. It involves a supportive interpersonal relationship between a person who shares his or her experience and skills (mentor) and a person seeking to develop his or her learning, evolve in a field or improve his or her skills (mentee). Mentoring is often intended to help people enter the workforce, facilitate their integration and support career planning.
In March 2021, the government announced the "1 jeune, 1 solution" project to help young people build their professional future. It is within this framework that the Collectif Mentorat is piloting and running the "1 jeune, 1 mentor" platform to help redirect young people looking for a mentor and volunteers wishing to become mentors to mentoring associations.
By 2022, 150,000 young people had been accompanied by mentors thanks to the Collectif Mentorat. Today, 72 associations and foundations are part of the collective. The Board of Directors is made up of the eight founding associations: AFEV, Article 1, Chemins d'Avenirs, Entraide Scolaire Amicale, NQT, Proxité, Socrate and Télémaque.
But what exactly is mentoring, and how can it be implemented within a company? We'll let you in on all the secrets in the rest of this article!
Also read: 6 steps to launching a mentoring program with a nonprofit in your company
What are the differences between mentoring and tutoring?
Mentoring and tutoring are terms often used interchangeably. Yet they are very different. Tutors work with their mentees to facilitate their learning, while mentors focus on developing their mentee's socio-professional skills. While a tutor may have several mentees, a mentor has only one mentee. Last but not least, tutoring takes place over a short period of time, compared to mentoring, which is more long-term in nature.
Here's a table taken from the book Mentoring and tutoring in teacher training by Alain Baudrit, summarizing the main differences between tutoring and mentoring:
What qualities are needed for mentoring?
There are certain qualities that are essential to being a mentor in the best possible way, to make the relationship rewarding for both parties. Here are the most important qualities we have identified:
- Have a positive attitude at all times,
- Active listening,
- Take an interest in the mentee's issues,
- Guide the mentee towards solutions he has acquired through his business experience,
- Be empathetic, intuitive, patient, honest and impartial, humble and authentic,
- Be motivating.
How do mentoring assignments work?
Mentoring involves a commitment of around 20 hours on average over a period ranging from 3 to 12 months, with meetings with the beneficiary once or twice a month. When the mentoring is carried out as part of an associative mission, thenonprofit mentor undertakes to follow the duo for the duration of the mission.
The aim of mentoring missions is to help the mentee bring his or her career project to fruition. This involves expanding their professional network, reflecting on the paths they need to take to realize their project, developing their interpersonal skills, and sharing experiences and secrets about different professions. The mentor is also committed to sharing concrete skills, providing tools and resources to overcome everyday challenges.
In addition to imparting knowledge and skills, the mentor is also on hand to provide moral support, motivation and reassurance. Indeed, this psychological support is important in helping the mentee to take action and overcome the challenges he or she faces.
A dynamic two-way exchange
Mentoring goes far beyond a simple one-way transfer of skills. If, at first, it seems that the mentor has more to offer, this exchange actually proves beneficial to both members of the duo.
For the mentor, this program represents an opportunity for both professional and personal enrichment. By sharing his know-how, he refines his skills, while having the opportunity to challenge his practices. Through interaction with their partners, they can also discover new ideas, particularly through reverse mentoring, where they learn innovative approaches or become familiar with recent technologies. In addition to boosting his credibility and professional prestige, this mentoring role enables him to expand his network, opening the way to new collaborations and career prospects.
On the mentee's side, mentoring accelerates learning and boosts self-confidence. Personalized coaching enables them to progress more rapidly, benefiting not only from specific skills, but also from the support they need to meet professional challenges. The mentee also benefits from the network and experience of his or her mentor, enabling him or her to forge links within the company and raise his or her profile. This enhanced visibility can lead to much faster career development opportunities.
Mentoring is therefore a reciprocal and dynamic exchange that values each participant and contributes to a corporate culture based on mutual support, mutual learning and continuous improvement.
What are the benefits of mentoring for a company?
Launching a mentoring program with partner associations can be of great benefit to companies. Here is a list of the main benefits that mentoring can bring to a company:
- Increased managerial productivity: by enabling the development of leadership skills and the acquisition of new perspectives, but also by strengthening team management skills, self-confidence and self-esteem.
- Accelerating career and talent development: by enabling the transfer of skills and experience and the development of specific know-how, but also by strengthening networks and visibility.
- Reducing staff turnover: by offering learning and development opportunities to employees, but also by engaging employees who feel valued in their work.
- Tax exemption: as soon as mentoring becomes part of a corporate philanthropy program, employees donate their skills to charitable organizations, enabling the company to benefit from a reduction in corporate or income tax.
👉 See also: Sponsoring skills: tax exemption and legal framework
Watch the webinar with all the tips for launching your corporate mentoring program👇
How do you set up mentoring within your company?
We have identified several steps to follow when setting up a mentoring program within your company. First of all, it is necessary to determine which associations correspond to the company's values, so that the employees' knowledge is in line with the company's needsnonprofit. Next, it's important to define clear objectives for the mentoring program. This preparatory stage concludes with an initial contact betweennonprofit and interested employees.
To put this into practice, it is advisable to organize matching sessions to match mentors with mentees according to the latter's needs. To ensure that mentoring sessions run smoothly throughout the duration of the mentoring process, it's important to set up a framework that defines the roles, expectations and responsibilities of everyone involved. Putting in place monitoring tools and resources also helps to improve appointments.
Finally, in order to improve the program, it's a good idea to ask questions about its implementation and progress. To do this, it's a good idea to set up an evaluation system so that adjustments can be made, but also to highlight successes to celebrate the progress of beneficiaries and the commitment of collaborators. This system would be twofold, as it would enable us toassess the satisfaction of both mentors and mentees.
Examples of associations offering mentoring missions
There are many associations offering mentoring missions. Here is a selection with different target groups:
They're on the move
nonprofit is committed to promoting diversity, and in particular the presence of women in scientific circles and the engineering industry. By becoming a mentor with "Elles bougent", women can choose which activities to take part in, according to their time and availability. The aim is to share her experience and difficulties with young girls, to help them better understand the opportunities open to them in the scientific and engineering worlds.
Arpejh
Arpejeh is a nonprofit company committed to people with disabilities, equal opportunities and diversity. Arpejeh offers mentoring assignments in which an employee helps a young person build his or her professional future over a period of 6 to 12 months. The employee undergoes a one-day distance training course to enable him/her to mentor a young terminal student. The mentor then makes himself available a few hours a month to support the student.
Kodiko
Kodiko is an employee-refugee co-training program designed to build a more inclusive society by helping refugees find employment. The mentor makes a 6-month commitment and meets face-to-face with the mentee twice a month. Mentors are employees or entrepreneurs, while mentees are job-seekers, newcomers, refugees and/or beneficiaries of international protection.
To find out more about mentoring and how you can help associations as a company: guide 10 impactful ways to help associations.
Our complete guide to corporate mentoring
You've made it this far, and we can hear you say "this year, I've decided to embark on the adventure of mentoring". Congratulations!
To make things easier for you, our team has put together a Notion page that you can download with a single click:
- Our directory of mentoring associations,
- The mentor's guide to breaking through clichés and making it easier to take action,
- Templates for communicating your mentoring program internally and externally,
- Company case studies and mentor testimonials,
- ...and many other tools and tips to make your mentoring program a success!
Whether you're in charge of HR or CSR, a manager or an employee, this Notion page has everything you need to get started on the mentoring adventure!
You're not yet a Wenabi partner and would like support in launching your mentoring program? Contact us to discuss our features and our support offer!
.svg)
.svg)